Traffic Snarls for 12 Miles After Accident : Crash: Pair suffer only minor injuries when their motor home hits a concrete wall and flips on Santa Ana Freeway near busy Garden Grove interchange during rush hour.

A motor home hit a concrete wall and flipped onto its side along the Santa Ana Freeway on Monday, resulting in minor injuries to a couple inside and snarling evening rush-hour traffic at one of the state’s busiest interchanges, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The injured couple, visibly shaken but conscious, were taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana after the 5:45 p.m. accident, said CHP Officer Angel Johnson.

The southbound lanes of the freeway near the Garden Grove Freeway interchange remained closed until just after 9 p.m. as the wreckage was cleared.

“It could have been a major incident,” said CHP Officer A.R. Yamaguchi. He said there were no other injuries or collisions reported in connection with the accident.

The driver of the motor home, Dale Eugene Reese, 71, of Oxnard, was calling his son on his cellular phone when paramedics arrived, the CHP said.

Reese and his wife, Elma Marie, 63, were treated for minor injuries, Johnson said, and it was possible they would be released from the hospital late Monday.

The Reeses were the only people in the motor home.

After the accident, CHP officers rerouted southbound traffic to the Garden Grove Freeway, while crews worked to clear the 1992 motor home, which lay on its left side surrounded by shards of glass and clothing in the center lane.

Traffic along the southbound lanes was backed up for 12 miles, the CHP said.

The newly purchased motor home was traveling about 50 m.p.h. in the slow lane when for unknown reasons it struck some attenuator barrels--the thick plastic barrels used to absorb the impact of a crash--and then a concrete wall just south of the Garden Grove Freeway interchange, police said.

The motor home left skid marks on the wall, then flipped onto its left side and skidded several feet before coming to a rest in the middle of the busy freeway.

“We’re so lucky (the accident was not worse) because it was right in the middle of rush hour,” Johnson said.

The cause of the accident was under investigation late Monday. Reese told officers that he was looking up at a freeway sign when he lost control of his motor home, Johnson said. A CHP investigation of the mangled motor home, driven just over 1,000 miles, did not turn up any mechanical problems, she said.

Caltrans estimates that the interchange at the Santa Ana and Garden Grove freeways, dubbed the “Orange Crush,” handles 492,500 vehicles each day--making it California’s fifth busiest interchange.

Times staff writers Donnette Dunbar and Eric Lichtblau contributed to this report.